


Everything Is Permitted

by softestpunk



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Fake/Pretend Relationship, Haytham is clueless bless him, M/M, Shay is... Shay, Undercover As Gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-28 19:20:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19818853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softestpunk/pseuds/softestpunk
Summary: Shay and Haytham have to go undercover in a gay club--mid-18th century style.





	Everything Is Permitted

**Author's Note:**

> For Trope Bingo Round 13
> 
> Square: Fake Relationship

“Are you sure this is the place?” Shay asked as we approached.

“You have some reason to doubt my intelligence?”

Shay shook his head, falling into step with me. I was beginning to second-guess bringing him along—not because Shay wasn’t an excellent operative, the best the Colonial rite had and very possibly the best in the entire Order.

Indeed, I could not entirely place what made me uneasy about bringing Shay along for this task, which certainly required two people who were comfortable with each other to complete.

“Never once, Grand Master,” Shay said, his tone suggesting that he had frequent cause to doubt my intelligence, but also that he was teasing me. I should not have allowed him the latitude to do so uncorrected, and yet I could not quite bring myself to sour his mood. We had both of us had a long few months, and though the nature of this particular operation was _delicate_ , it was unlikely to put us in any great physical danger.

In the event it got us in legal trouble, I had the connections to get us back out of it. Men like me were not often brought to answer for crimes like this.

No man should have—it should not have been a crime, as it did no one any injury. Yet another area in which the Order would have to work.

“I should allow you a last opportunity to object,” I said as we came nearly within earshot of the two men on the door. The street was otherwise deserted.

A quiet, apparently private house in a quiet street on the outskirts of the city. Unassuming and far away from prying eyes. The perfect venue.

“And miss out on all the fun? Not on your life,” he said, grinning at me.

This was not the reaction I’d expected, and I wondered what I’d missed about Shay that seemed to make him not only comfortable but apparently _enthusiastic_ about the prospect of what we were doing this evening.

“All right, gents?” the doorman—also Irish—beamed at us, rocking on the balls of his feet. “Password?”

“Eros,” I said without missing a beat.

Too simple a password, but then these clubs operated by acquaintance. The password was merely proof that one had an acquaintance who was already trusted.

The doorman’s gaze swung directly to Shay. “And he’s with you?”

“I know,” Shay said, grinning at him. “Too pretty for him by half.”

“Kiss him,” the doorman said, nodding to his larger, less loquacious friend. “Since we’ve not seen you here before.”

Ah.

An additional security measure. Once Shay did as he was asked he’d be immediately incriminated and clearly not undercover, since the kind of man who would feel the need to expose a place like this would never give in to _that_ demand.

I had just been formulating a plan to get around it when Shay, also without missing a beat, closed the gap between himself and the other doorman, pushed him into the alcove, and pressed their lips together.

Horror at not having managed to protect Shay from the indignity melted into embarrassment over staring within the space of a breath, all of which I hoped would be taken as jealousy rather than shock.

Shay winked at the larger man as he nodded for him to go through, and I followed him inside without another word.

“Why _Eros_?” he asked before I could gather enough composure to apologise to him.

“Ah, well, Eros was the Greek god of sexual love and a patron of, uh… men like this.” I said, nodding to the crowd.

The inside of the house was nothing like the unassuming outside, but instead festooned with garlands and flowers and long strings of glass beads that glinted by the light of fire and candles, just enough to save anyone from seeing anyone else’s face _too_ clearly. A kind of anonymity one step down from a masked ball.

“Right. The Greeks didn’t mind so much, did they?”

I was still considering how comfortable Shay had been with following the doorman’s command outside. Was it simply that he was, as I had thought only minutes ago, good at his job?

Or did Shay’s inclinations line up with those of the men here? I had heard him speak of women he had enjoyed the company of openly and enthusiastically with Gist and Weeks, but enjoying the company of the one did not, necessarily, exclude enjoying the company of the other.

“Uh,” I blinked at him, realising he was still awaiting an answer. Shay’s curiosity was one of his best qualities, and I always tried to feed it where I could. “Depending on who you ask, it was even _preferable_. Plato, for one, made an argument to suggest that the only _real_ love could be between a younger man and an older one.”

Shay gave me an incredibly pointed look, and I was suddenly grateful for the low lighting.

It didn’t matter, of course, who Shay chose to take to his bed. The Order had several members whose inclinations ran toward their own gender, and we accepted and indeed protected them. Adding Shay to their number was a trifle—a footnote, barely worth consideration other than to remember that he may need the help. He had done more than enough for the Order, by now, to have earned himself quite a lot more leeway than this harmless quirk.

Besides, I reminded myself, it was only to be expected. Shay was an assassin. Everything was permitted.

I was also not so innocent that I wasn’t aware of what happened on long sea voyages, and he had made plenty of those in his young life—indeed, spent many of his formative years at sea. It made _sense_.

And it did not bother me. Shay remained clever and resourceful, charming, loyal to the Order and to myself personally, and this was as much as I would ever have asked of him.

“You took that slight deviation to the plan well,” I said, before I could stop myself.

I didn’t _care_ , but some part of me had to _know_.

“You’re wondering if I’ve done this before,” Shay responded, his uncanny ability to read my mind in full force. “Will you kick me out if I have?”

“Of course not. It was an Order member who alerted me to the existence of this place. None of these men are doing any harm, and historically it has been thought quite a natural thing, as we were just discussing.”

“Well, how about I start looking for that information you want, and you can tell me when we leave what you think of me,” Shay murmured in my ear, breath tickling the short hairs at the back of my neck.

And then he was gone, my side cold where he had left it.

I had long thought myself quite a charming man, more than able, by sheer force of personality, to bring people around to my point of view and have them do my bidding for no reason other than that they longed for my approval.

Watching Shay made me feel clumsy, awkward, and vastly less attractive than I flattered myself I was. Despite his life as a sea captain and his ease with leadership, he was not a man who moved into a room and immediately commanded respect. He could be anything to anyone, friend and confidante, co-conspirator, drinking companion, and this evening…

Seducer.

Every man he turned his attention to looked at him, after a very short period, with undisguised hunger in their eyes, and Shay encouraged it without the barest hint of hesitation.

Yes, I decided. He had done this before. He had lain with other men and enjoyed it thoroughly, judging by the way he glanced up at them from under those dark eyelashes, stroked his fingers over the backs of their hands, bit his lip and tilted his head back to drink, exposing the long, elegant line of his throat to men who would have liked nothing more than to kiss and lick and bite at it, revel in the taste of him.

Something akin to discomfort settled in the pit of my stomach.

Shay was, I reasoned, merely doing what I had asked. Doing it _well_ , and seamlessly, and so none of these men would even remember divulging a secret to him, because they had so believed he might be moved to go upstairs with them, or to their homes if they felt particularly bold.

And yet the feeling persisted. Not disgust, but something that itched at the back of my mind, some ugly feeling I could not quite identify. Guilt, perhaps, at asking him to do this—though he reacted with unfeigned pleasure at being so fawned over.

Guilt then at showing him this place, putting him at risk. He might come back here without me, such was his enjoyment of being the belle of the ball, and while this place was secret now, it would not remain so forever. Eventually, as was always the case, a spurned lover or unhappy neighbour would report it to the authorities, and it would be raided, and shut down, and an unlucky few men made an example of.

I didn’t like to think of Shay as one of them, and depending on circumstances, I may not have been near enough to intervene at the time.

Yes, that was it. I didn’t like the thought of him taking the risk when he had other options, options far less likely to get him in serious trouble. Even knowing Shay could get himself out of trouble did not ease the feeling that I had made a mistake in bringing him here. That he should not have compromised himself so or flirted so openly and enthusiastically with men who likely _would_ recognise such an attractive man, low lighting or no.

“That one yours, is he?” the doorman asked, suddenly beside me.

I had been so focused on Shay that the man had managed to sneak up on me—no small feat.

“A friend,” I said.

The doorman raised an eyebrow. “Funny. Because the way you’re glaring daggers into the poor sods flocking ‘round him, I’d say that looked a whole lot like jealousy from here.”

“I didn’t object to him kissing your friend, did I?” I asked, unsure why I was bothering to defend myself. I had _brought_ Shay here as a partner, after all. I ought to have stuck to that story.

“You might not have said anything,” the doorman allowed. “But the way you looked at him, I feared for our Tommy’s life a moment.”

 _Yes_ , I thought. _Because of the indignity being inflicted on my favourite_.

Warmth enveloped my side again as Shay slipped his arm through mine, undermining everything I’d just said by leaning in to whisper in my ear.

“Got what we need,” he murmured, whiskey on his breath and his voice low and sultry. “Let’s go home.”

The doorman smirked at me as I led Shay away.

I had hoped the cold night air might help knock some sense into me, but with Shay still leaning against my side, warm and solid, my mind was not as clear as I might have hoped.

We walked in silence, the evening still playing on a loop through my mind, a kind of horrified fascination washing over me as I remembered every glance and touch Shay had bestowed on another man.

Shay straightened as we reached approximately the halfway point, walking rather than taking a coach due to the late hour and the risk of being spotted coming away from where we’d been. The night was fine enough that the walk was welcome to me, in any case, and Shay had never shied away from doing things the hard way. He might have made the journey back along the rooftops if he’d been more careful about accepting drink after drink in the pursuit of plying the right men.

He might have done it _anyway_ , had I been inclined to follow.

“You’re angry with me,” Shay said.

“I am not,” I responded honestly. I _wasn_ _’t_. Not with Shay. I had never been angry with Shay in the entire time we’d known one another.

“Disappointed, then. Disgusted, maybe,” he prodded.

“Not at all,” I said, that same discomfort pooling in the pit of my stomach again. “As I said, the Order—”

“I’m not asking what the Order thinks,” Shay said, stopping dead in his tracks and forcing me to do the same if I didn’t want to lose him, standing in the darkened mouth of an alleyway so I couldn’t see his face clearly. “I’m asking what _you_ think.”

“I…”

Honesty. I had promised myself I would always be honest with Shay, since he had been so ill-treated by Achilles. And Liam.

Oh.

 _Liam_.

Had they…

I didn’t like to think about it. Liam O’Brien had none of Shay’s elegance or charm, an enormous brute of a man who I did _not_ like to think of laying his hands on Shay.

… where on _earth_ had that thought come from?

“I fear I have put a temptation in your path which may serve to hurt you in future,” I said, dragging my thoughts away from O’Brien’s hands on Shay’s body.

“A temptation in my path?” Shay asked, the tension between us easing back to familiar curiosity.

“You enjoy the company of women,” I said. “And this is far less likely to end in getting you in trouble than… liaisons with one of those strange men you met tonight. But I fear that now that you know what you can have, and having _so_ enjoyed it, I may have inadvertently caused your downfall,” I added, taking a step toward him, wanting to show that I was not disgusted, that our relationship had not changed.

“So it’s not _men_ you’re worried about,” Shay said, quick to cut through my surplus of words and get to the heart of the matter. “It’s strangers. Men I can’t trust.”

“Yes,” I agreed. That was most certainly it. The problem was not the _principle_ that Shay might be attracted to men, but the specific men to whom he was attracted.

I didn’t like or trust any of the ones he’d sidled up to tonight. They had looked at him too desperately, they could too easily have become obsessed—and then heartbroken, if Shay did not return their affection.

I simply wanted to protect him.

“I see,” Shay said, in that tone that meant he saw a great deal more than simply whatever I was explaining to him. He saw the motivations behind things, made connections so easily—more easily, sometimes, than I did. One of Shay’s greatest assets was that he could look at a man and see into his heart.

He took a step toward me, dark eyes inscrutable in the low light.

“So as long as it was someone trustworthy…”

“Then I should have no cause to worry,” I agreed.

Gist, perhaps? He had shown no such inclinations, but then neither had Shay up to this point.

Captain Cook seemed a more likely candidate in terms of his regard for Shay, though rather _less_ likely to give in, even to Shay’s peerless seduction.

I barely noticed him take my hand, so busy was I looking for possible clues as to who Shay’s intended lover might be.

My heart stopped for a beat as he raised it to his lips, bending the last few inches to kiss the knuckles, glancing up at me through his eyelashes.

He had _not_ done this for any of the men in there.

“Just as well I was already walking with someone I trust with my life, then,” he said. “An acceptable choice, Master Kenway?”

My stomach dropped as though I had fumbled my footing halfway up up a very tall building.

 _Me_?

That was…

“Yes,” I said, barely hearing myself over the rush of blood in my ears.

That was probably all right, then.


End file.
